Cats in (my) art - for a challenge

 

The March challenge of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' is about animals in art. 

In my art animals are mostly cats, so I recycled some old sketches to a new 'collage' of cats and made the painting. After that I added some parts of silhouettes using a line marker.

The whole idea was that it would be sketch-like, no real portraits of the cats, those were made earlier.

This is a very small tribute to the cats that I was allowed to paint thin the last years.

The information about the materials I have used, the size and availability of this work and my contact information can all be found in my Tumblr blog.

To die for - for a challenge

 

The November challenge of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' is in Dutch 'Om je vingers bij af te likken' which translates (Google translate) as 'To die for'. The original phrase is about licking your fingers after eating something delicious.

And that is what I wanted to draw this time. A cat licking his fingers/paw after eating. Another cat is also present to suggest the food.

For this drawing I used examples from a book with tutorials about drawing cats (not much more than a line sketch and a result in grey shades) and I added the colours using my imagination. To be able to draw two cats I used one of my larger sizes of paper

The information about the materials I have used, the size of this drawing and its availability can all be found in my Tumblr blog.

If you are interested in my original artworks, please contact me.

Daily meals

 

This January the challenge of our local Amateur Art Association  Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken  was 'daily meals' , meant as a returning to normal after the weeks of Christmas and all other festive days.

Of course there is a lot of inspiration in our daily food choices, but of course i wanted something different, not 'what all other people do'.

My mother came up with the idea of eating cats - as they do eat the same meals every day, no special Christmas food for them with the exception of a special treat when we are having coffee or tea. She had the idea, but there are no reference pictures of her cat eating, so I asked my daughter and she had some pictures.

This one, where the oldest cat is eating from the food bowl of the youngest was my favourite. The other food bowl has the same cat kibble, but the portion in the bowl that is not for him is more appealing.

So Tamlen is eating and Regalyan seems to be looking for help from my daughter. 

I still have to practise a lot before I can make a 'purrfect' cat portrait, but I am happy that my daughter liked this one.

The information about the materials I have used, the size and availability of this watercolour can all be found in my Tumblr blog

Still sleepy

This watercolour is of course the result of my promise to myself that I would try to improve my skills in drawing and painting cats (see my previous post).

After I had made the charcoal drawing for the July challenge I did send a picture of the result to my brother, who went to see the reaction of my models. 
They did open their eyes, yawned and went back to sleep again, but not without being photographed again by my brother, who sent me the pictures.

This time I decided to make a watercolour of the two brothers and here they have just opened their eyes - or are almost closing them again.

The dark one did not have much 'shape' as it was really hard to see his face. The ears and eyes were visible though and some details of his nose. The light coloured brother had his eyes almost closed now, so the blue was not visible. 
And the colours of their fur..... One is almost black with hints of a reddish brown, the other is taupe - and how to mix taupe was another challenge, but it looks almost right.

To make the drawing easier for me I had chosen a white cellulose paper, which did not make painting easy, but this I can handle now.

I still think I want to improve my skills at drawing and painting cats but this watercolour is what I hoped it would be.

The information about the paper and paints I have used, the size and availability can be found in the link at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Sleepy

The July challenge of our regional amateur art association (Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken) was 'on the edge of sleep'. There were a lot of hints in the description of the theme, but the first thing that came up in my mind was this.

The innocent models are my brother's two cats that yawn very  ...  inspiring.

Of course I thank my brother for the pictures he made for me. I intend to use them to work on my skills as a cat - painter. This drawing is good for the challenge, but does not suffice as a portrait of these two Asian brothers. As mentioned, I will work on it.

Because one of the brothers is almost black and the other is almost white, I had chosen charcoal for this drawing with the use of some pastel pencils for the colour inside the ears and mouth.
The sheep skin they use as their 'living room bed' is only suggested.

After I had shared this drawing with my brother he sent me the pictures of their reaction - so I have a lot of practice material now.

The information about the materials I have used for this drawing, the size and availability can be found in the link at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Modern Times

The challenge for the month of March (by 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' the amateur art association of which I am a member) is 'Wat vliegt daar?' - or in English: What flies there?
A lot of ideas come up, some absurd, some very common and some that are to be thought over. I decided to ask for ideas during a day out with some members of my  family. 
This painting is the result of the suggestions that came up and were discussed while we enjoyed a good cup of coffee.
I have made my own composition using most of the ideas that were suggested, choosing the elements from the suggestions that I liked and ending up with a painting that still has my own 'handwriting', with a little inspiration - assistance.

I have used some of my Limited edition Twilight Colours combined with colours from my regular palette to give this scene the atmosphere I wanted it to have.

The  replacement of the broomstick by a more high-tech piece of household equipment is an obvious sign of Modern Times and of course the empty box is taken by the cats.


More information about this watercolour painting (size, materials used, availability, contact information, etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

At least they are Ginger!

In some of my earlier blog posts I may have mentioned that I am member of Doodlewash.com, and that sometimes I use the prompts they supply to get inspiration for a painting. 
For the month of September (2018) the prompts are based on really existing remembrance or appreciation days. Today it is Ginger Cat appreciation Day so I just had to try to paint one or more Ginger cats!

I used the references from 'Plaisirs de Peindre' Magazine that I have used before to make drawings. The drawings were not so hard to do, watercolour is quite a challenge when it is about the cats. The tree trunk they are climbing on was easy.

I have tried to use different colour mixtures, based on Burnt Sienna to make two different cats. Ginger cats come in all sorts of colour mixtures, some of them have a lot of white in their fur, others are in shades of an orange-brown with more or less stripes.
The cat on the left only got some sense of roundness after I had used pencils, as all the paint I applied continued to flow out to become a very flat looking surface.
I do not know what caused that problem, maybe the colours I used to mix the shades of 'Ginger' for the fur. 

With this painting I have tried to paint animals - a subject I usually avoid. That said, the results are not very bad and I might want to do this more often to become more experienced and (I hope) better. 
This painting was done mostly for the fun of planning and painting a watercolour of two Ginger Cats.
There are more remembrance days in Doodlewash's list for this month so there will be some more paintings that I would not usually do. 

And the title of the painting? That comes from the Dr.Who fans.

More information (size, materials used, availability, etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com